“Okay, so you really have no idea who we are?” Swift asked curiously. I shook my head. He sighed. “Well AR did find you under that rubble...” His voice trailed off, as if he was debating whether to tell me my past or not. I was starting to get annoyed.

We were now out of earshot of the three girls. Luna was to busy struggling to escape her sister’s tight grasp and Dashie was to busy laughing and Celestia, well, she was strangling Luna. We had walked down some stairs that lead to an even larger room. Aimer was upstairs attempting to pry the two sisters apart. So we basically left him for dead. If he made it out of that alive I’ll ask him in case Swift never tells me.

Swift just walked next to me, staring blankly at the door that was approaching. As we came right in front of it, he stopped advancing. “Are you sure you want to walk through this door?” He asked me.

I gave him a dead look. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

“Because if you do you’re gonna have the worst headache in the time that you exist.”

“What?”

“You’re gonna remember who you are.”

It hit me like a rockslide. I had never come to realize that maybe they never remembered their pasts’ either. I suddenly had mixed emotions about walking through the door. It was half sun, half moon, and sprinkled with hearts of crystal and purple stars. Very particular door to walk through to get a headache.

I also didn’t expect to not want to remember. I don’t want to know what happened. Even if I already have had dreams of what I think is this place, I never really got the full picture. I figured out that if got hurt I would wake up. I always got hurt. I WANTED to get hurt. I hate this.

“You’re telling me I’ll remember everything?” I asked. Swift didn’t answer with words, but with a nod of his head. “Does this mean...”

“Yeah. It happened to all of us. It hit AR the hardest. We haven’t seen him or heard from him since.”

I wanted to meet AR. But that story got some gears turning. “Did he ever tell you what happened?”

Swift seemed to have bad memories of this. He hung his head in shame. “It’s probably better if I tell you what really happened after you walk through that door.”

I turned my head nervously. I was face-to-face with the door now. I raised a hoof and gave it a gentle tap. The door flung open, slamming against the wall. The room started to spin and I was getting dizzy. I felt myself lose balance. My head made contact with the floor.

————————————————————————

”Ughhhhh... what happened?” I raised my head wearily. All I could see were the hooves of a pony. I followed the forelegs upward with my gaze and saw a grey stallion standing above me. We have various rights of passage from colthood to being a stallion and this stallion looked like he had gone through every single one. From the scrapes and cuts on his head to the bruises on his wings.

I attempted to get to my hooves only for them to crumble beneath me. Looking down at my right foreleg it was clear it was badly damaged. It had cuts and bruises all up and down it and it appeared to be broken. I tried once again being the stubborn ralicorn everypony knew I was. This time I was a little more successful and managed to get, the 3 that could, my legs fully extended. But it didn’t last long and I crumbled again. I was caught in the hooves of the stallion, who was about my age, and slowly lowered onto my back.

“Hold still.” He whispered. “And be very quiet when you talk. If they find us, we will die.” He reached out one of his hooves and placed it just above my eyes. I suddenly felt like I was floating. I heard my leg crack back into place. That HURT. I was prepared to let out a mighty shriek of pain when a bloody hoof covered my mouth. “Be. Quiet.” The stallion scolded. The floating sensation left me and as I looked back at my hoof I saw that the bruises, cuts and scrapes were all gone.

I looked up at the grey stallion and our rainbow eyes met. He held out his hoof and helped me stand. “Thank you.” I whispered.

“Don’t mention it.” He whispered back. He gestured for me to follow him and I did as instructed. “I’m Ace Runner. But you can call me AR.” He walked into the temple’s entrance. “Tread softly. Don’t make any noise.”

We walked in unison and in silence for several seconds. “I’m Starry Light. But you can call me Starry.” The pony stopped walking. He turned his head to look at me.

“Don’t walk in front of me. I’m no leader yet.”

“Oh.” I trotted softly past him.

“Don’t walk in front of me. I won’t follow.” He softly padded across the floor until he was next to me.

“Well then where am I to walk?” I asked dumbly. It was not in our culture to walk anyway else.

“Walk beside me. As a friend.” He smiled. I smiled too. We came to a pile of rubble with a large wooden panel that AR moved to reveal an entrance. He moved the panel back in

We emerged into a large open area where ten other ralicorns sat, some badly injured, some perfectly healthy. There was another stallion, this one white, who was doing the exact same healing method AR had used on me. When he saw us walk in he trotted over and placed his hoof on AR.

“Be careful next time AR!”

“Pfft. What ever Swift. I found somepony. His name is Starry Light.” He pointed a hoof at me.

Swift turned his head towards me. “Any injuries?” He asked.

I looked at AR, then back at Swift. “Nothing that hasn’t been fixed already. Is this some sort of rescue operation or something?”

“You could call it an attempt to escape but we’re all 13. We haven’t gotten very far.”

I looked around. It was a decent sized little cave of rubble for the 12 of us. “What do you guys call this place?”

Swift looked at me after removing his hoof from AR’s head. “We’re still in our temple. But hopefully we get out alive. In case you didn’t know, a group of elders turned on the counsel. Absorbing and harnessing the greed and jealousy of everything inside this place. They became nightmares. AR here is the only one who can even put up a fight against them.”

AR had a smug smile.”I won this time!” Swift rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, just giving you the layout here; if we don’t leave we are all going to die here. We’ve got an escape route but we’re still searching for survivors. We want every last ralicorn.”

AR looked at the ground suddenly. He whispered something inaudible under his breath.

“What was that?” I asked.

He looked up at the two of us. “Starry was the last life energy I’ve detected. Your detection ran out a long time ago. There’s... there”s nopony left to save.”

Author's Note

When I started this chapter I was also helping an author who got hit with writers block mid-story to get the next few chapters moving. (I basically sat at a desk for about two hours straight writing rough draft after draft and throwing a lot of ideas away before I came up with something that was actually good. So I sent him the idea and he managed to make over 1,000 words out of it.) I was put into the story with a really cool cover name that he made up. (Even if it’s not my OC’s actual name it was cool )

I suggest you check his fic out; https://www.fimfiction.net/story/402360/a-mothers-love-is-eternal